IBD Editorials

Future Of GOP Is In Its "Big-Tent Libertarian" Base

By MATT KIBBE09/13/2013 05:26 PM ET

It's a lonely job in Washington if you're an elected Republican who promised to balance the budget and restore the Constitution. Beltway experts roll their eyes and dismiss your "naive" and "oversimplified" views of economic policy and the proper role of government. Party leaders call you into their offices to politely suggest you "mind your place and get in line."

Your A-list cocktail party invitations start to get lost in the mail. You've become a real buzz kill for the inner circle, and all because you had the nerve to tackle the problems nobody else in D.C. seems to want to solve. Don't take it personally. One special-interest city's social pariah is the rest of the country's principled grass-roots hero.

New polling shows that policymakers with an authentic commitment to personal freedom and non-intrusive government will thrive in the Republican Party's growing "big-tent libertarian" base, while the big-government Old Guard will follow its own trend and disappear into political obscurity.

FreedomWorks' national poll of 1,000 registered voters found that while the Republican Party fumbles to rehabilitate its damaged political brand, favorable opinions towards big-tent libertarian values are at the highest level in a decade. The economy, health care and jobs take top priority across the voter base, early evidence that political dynamics in 2014 will resemble the 2010 midterm elections.

There is a realignment happening in the GOP, a return to the domestic economic policy priorities that fueled the last Republican midterm sweep. It's 2009 all over again, only this time combined with a growing distrust of an executive branch plagued with IRS targeting and NSA surveillance scandals, and selective ObamaCare enforcement.

The perfect storm is brewing for a referendum on the unchecked authority and arrogance of big government, and Republican incumbents ignore these trends at their own peril.

According to the poll, 68% of Republican voters believe that "individuals should be free to do as they like as long as they don't hurt others, and that the government should keep out of people's day-to-day lives."

Sixty-one percent of American voters believe the economic policies coming out of Washington are hurting rather than helping, and only 17% believe ObamaCare will have positive personal impact (a new low point since the law was passed in March 2010).

This big-tent libertarian constituency isn't a small camp of eccentrics who discuss the merits and pitfalls of Objectivism while wearing Von Mises T-shirts. These are Americans of all ages, races and creeds who politically self-identify in a number of different ways, but share a common guiding philosophy.

The ethos of the "big-tent libertarian" is simple: Don't hurt others. Don't take their stuff. Apply the same laws to yourself that you impose on the rest of us. Do what you promised you would do.

All trends point to the 2014 political landscape being less about Republican versus Democrat, and more about the connected insiders versus the rest of us.

The "purple line" that once separated the red team from the blue team has been fading since the 2008 TARP debate, when party leaders from both sides corralled their caucuses behind closed doors to vote for a bailout they knew was wrong, that America didn't want, but passed anyway in the panicked name of "bipartisanship."

Once again, Americans are connecting the dots. Forty percent of American voters say neither party can be trusted to reform government in Washington. Voters on both sides of the aisle are starting to realize that "bipartisan" is a code word for "collusion."

Two-thirds of GOP voters want their representatives to stick to principles rather than compromise in a bipartisan way. They want leaders who will show up when it counts, on issues like defunding ObamaCare, where 86% say leaders should pass a continuing resolution with no funding for ObamaCare.

Tolerance for the revolving door of budgetary trickery is dwindling, with a whopping 81% of Republican voters opposing a debt ceiling increase and 66% "strongly" opposing an increase.

Luckily, the lonely principled legislator now has a team to help combat insider resistance. The grassroots freedom movement has successfully repopulated the GOP with an upstart generation of leaders including Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, and Reps. Thomas Massie, Justin Amash and David Schweikert.

Much like 2010, Republicans up for re-election who continue to shut out constituents and ignore the economic policy priorities that fueled the last GOP midterm sweep will suffer. To win in 2014, the GOP must take its negotiating tables out of the back room and move them under the big tent.